e contrary side are Montfaucon,
Mabillon, and Muratori; the latter of whom carries up the invention of
our ordinary paper to the year 1000. But Tiraboschi contends that the
paper used in manuscripts of so early an age was made from cotton rags,
and, apparently from the inferior durability of that material, not
frequently employed. The editors of Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique are
of the same opinion, and doubt the use of linen paper before the year
1300. t. i. p. 517, 521. Meerman, well known as a writer upon the
antiquities of printing, offered a reward for the earliest manuscript
upon linen paper, and, in a treatise upon the subject, fixed the date of
its invention between 1270 and 1300. But M. Schwandner of Vienna is said
to have found in the imperial library a small charter bearing the date
of 1243 on such paper. Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 394.
Tiraboschi, if he had known this, would probably have maintained the
paper to be made of cotton, which he says it is difficult to
distinguish. He assigns the invention of linen paper to Pace da Fabiano
of Treviso. But more than one Arabian writer asserts the manufacture of
linen paper to have been carried on at Samarcand early in the eighth
century, having been brought thither from China. And what is more
conclusive, Casiri positively declares many manuscripts in the Escurial
of the eleventh and twelfth centuries to be written on that substance.
Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispanica, t. ii. p. 9. This authority appears much
to outweigh the opinion of Tiraboschi in favour of Pace da Fabiano, who
must perhaps take his place at the table of fabulous heroes with
Bartholomew Schwartz and Flavio Gioja. But the material point, that
paper was very little known in Europe till the latter part of the
fourteenth century, remains as before. See Introduction to History of
Literature, c. i. Sec. 58.

[900] Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 122.

[901] Velly, t. v. p. 202; Crevier, t. ii. p. 36.

[902] Warton, vol. i; Dissert. II.

[903] Ibid.

[904] Warton, vol. i. Dissert. II. Fifty-eight books were transcribed in
this abbey under one abbot, about the year 1300. Every considerable
monastery had a room, called Scriptorium, where this work was performed.
More than eighty were transcribed at St. Albans under Whethamstede, in
the time of Henry VI. ibid. See also Du Cange, V Scriptores.
Nevertheless we must remember, first, that the far greater part of these
books wer